


It's Raining Somewhere Else

by BaskervilleOldFace (FenVallas)



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, POV Third Person
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-25
Updated: 2015-10-26
Packaged: 2018-04-28 03:28:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5076064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FenVallas/pseuds/BaskervilleOldFace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sans tries to cope with a True Reset. Papyrus is there to help, even if he doesn't know that's what he's doing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Mustard the Strength

**Author's Note:**

> Be patient with me. This is my first time writing something in a few months and my first time posting in this fandom. I'm not 100% confident in my characterization yet, so I just ask for patience.

Sans woke that morning to the sound of Papyrus banging around in the kitchen and forced himself to fight down the sense of impending déjà vu that often threatened to overcome him. He would have to go to his workshop to know for sure, he reminded himself, curling up onto his side to stare at his treadmill with a bleary gaze. There was no knowing for certain if it had reset until then, or, well, if he happened to see the child, but he was at least months away from that now if the timeline **_had_** reset.

He didn't want to move.

It was essential that he get up and act like nothing was wrong, like he hadn't taken pages full of notes about all the possible paths he had observed, but it was so hard to have the will to now. He couldn't remember, exactly, what it had felt like to want to end the Anomaly, to have hope and the will to live beyond any given moment, which is what made all of this so damn **_frustrating_**. There was a part of Sans that knew that he had been a different person once, in a different timeline, a person who could be assed to actually care about anything besides for Papyrus, but whoever that person had been, Sans was literally incapable of remembering him.

He only knew that everything kept repeating and that each time it did, he felt more and more lethargic. What was the point of trying when the timeline would just be reset anyway? When whatever relationships he forged, his every achievement and victory, would just be erased for someone else's enjoyment?

The smell of burning pasta pushed a breathy chuckle past the gaps in his teeth, forcing him to blink back the tears the dripped from his eyesockets and finally push himself into a sitting position. He rubbed at his face, annoyed at his leaking eyes, taking another deep breath as he tipped his head back to look at his ceiling, listening to Papyrus shout incoherently through the floor about how his masterpiece was ruined.

Sans dragged himself out of bed, slipping into his house slippers and wondering if he would ever find the time or energy to do laundry when the world would inevitably eventually reset itself. Even he thought the trash tornado was getting out of hand, but he simply didn't care that much any longer, even if he should. He shuffled towards his door, massaging his skull with the tips of his fingers for half a second before he took one of his shortcuts, leaning against the wall to watch Papyrus scurry about the kitchen frantically.

"Sup, bro?"

"You know **_exactly_** what is up, brother!" Papyrus placed a congealed mass of half burnt noodles, still in the pot, on the counter -- the sauce, still on the stove in a saucepan, looked to be fine, but Sans would have bet real money that it was under seasoned. "You slept in late, once again! And now my plans to make you a healthy meal in order to restore your energy and prevent further slacking has been utterly foiled by the wiles of our wicked oven!"

Sans couldn't help the way his eyes softened, despite seeing the tension in Papyrus' spine that betrayed his distress at having failed. He knew Papyrus felt responsible for him, and though there was a part of him that felt guilty for being something of a burden to his brother, Papyrus was the one variable in his life that he could always count on.

It was with that thought in mind that Sans shrugged and walked away from the wall, walking over to his brother with a lazy grin on his face. He placed his hand on his brother's spinal column, grinning lazily, slippers scuffling against the tile. "Hey, don't worry about it. It was probably an im _pasta_ ble mission."

"Sans!!" Papyrus shouted, recoiling, the melancholy driven from him in place of mock offense. "That was terrible! Your jokes are an offense to all monster-kind!!"

Sans couldn't help how at ease Papyrus' apparent outrage put him. Seeing his brother smile like this did both of them some good, and Sans knew that deep down Papyrus realized he was helping Sans, too. Calling Sans lazy was just his way of... Well, it didn't really matter, ultimately, but it still felt good to know someone cared about him.

"I can't help it, bro. I just have a _penne_ chent for puns."

Papyrus threw up his hands and Sans laughed, watching his brother storm out of the kitchen, still wearing his oven mitts and apron. Yeah, Sans thought, trailing after his brother, hands jammed so deeply in his pockets that he could feel lint tickle his fingertips, he could probably deal with whatever else was out there as long as he had Papyrus.

At this point, he was pretty much the only good things Sans had to live for.

* * *

 

The forests outside of Snowdin were dark and quiet, impossibly ancient and tangled, their branches nearly brushing the subterranean rooftop that had shielded the monsters from human eyes for hundreds of years. Sans walked the path from Snowdin proper to the sentry station outside the entrance of the ruins, dragging his feet and listening to the sound echo off the walls as the passage grew progressively more narrow.

He carried a newspaper underneath his arm, a ketchup bottle in the lining of his jacket, and a pillow stuffed underneath his sweater for his own convenience. There were other condiments at the sentry station, but they were half full and probably half frozen, and Sans didn't particularly feel like putting in the effort of warming them up just so he could drink them. For the millionth time, he was grateful that the cold didn't affect him very much, if at all. He imagined that having skin and internal organs was a bit of a pain and didn't envy anyone who had to live with them.

Sans slipped into the sentry station, immediately slumping in his seat, his legs dangling off the chair. He looked at his feet for half a second and then stretched, feeling his spine pop back into alignment as he did so. Around him, the world was relatively quiet, especially as the Underground didn't have much in the way of wildlife, quiet enough that Sans almost immediately began to nod off.

He didn't, though.

Instead, he took out his crossword puzzle and removed the sheath of papers he'd hidden inside the fold of the newspaper. He thumbed through them slowly, his eyes narrowing before he threw the papers onto the stand and pressed his fingers to his temporal bone, leaning his head back and groaning.

The handwriting was definitely his, and from the look of things...

"Damnit." Sans picked up the papers again, but gingerly, as if they would burn him if they touched his fingers.

He inhaled, though it was more for dramatic effect than anything else, his shoulders going rigid as his fingers tangled in the fabric of his sweater, the other hand still grasping the papers. The pinpricks of light deep in his eyesockets followed the words, his fingers grasping his sweater hard enough to snag the fabric, his emotions nearly enough to make his bones rattle.

**_They'd gotten out._ **

They'd gotten out and the human had still reset the timeline, for some reason he didn't understand. Sans had suspected they planned to, of course, with how lethargic they had seemed after returning home... And now here they were, having gotten the best ending possible, stuck back in the underground because... Because...

Why?

"What did you do kid?" Sans tucked his papers back into place and slammed his forehead against the wood of the sentry station. "Why would you stick us all back here just... Just like that...?"

A sense of near paralyzing hopelessness threatened to overcome him, and for a moment he simply sat face down with his frontal and nasal bone pressed to the wood, grinding his teeth hard enough that his mandible clicked with the effort. This time his bones did rattle, the sound somewhat muffled by his clothing and the pillow, his entire body shuddering with his despair.

How was he supposed to keep going on after this? How was he supposed to forge forward after **_this_**? The Sans from the other timeline had apologized in his notes for what was about to happen, but what good did that do Sans now?

Sans was sorry. **_Of course_** he was sorry.

He had been sorry since it was that flower doing this, and he was even sorrier now that the human was doing it, but **_sorry_** didn't change a damn thing.

Sorry couldn't bring the other timeline back.

He was so caught up in his thoughts that he didn't notice the sound of boots crunching through the snow until a large shadow loomed over him. Sans heard the gasp, grunting only slightly when a pair of gloved hands grasped him underneath his shoulder joints and hoisted him into the air.

"Sans!!!"

"Hey, bro," Sans said, blinking slowly as he stared into Papyrus' face. "What's _hanging_?"

Papyrus groaned loudly but didn't drop Sans, whose slippers had fallen into the snow when his brother had picked him up. "That is ridiculous, brother! And also terrible!"

Despite not quite feeling up to it, Sans offered his brother a lazy grin. Papyrus grinned back at him, setting him down on top of the counter, where his legs dangled off the edge of the sentry station. Sans watched his brother place his hands upon his bony hips with a flourish, his expression transforming from fond to scolding in a flash. "Sans!!! I went through all this trouble to get you this job and all you do is sleep! What if Undyne finds out? What would you do if the image of your brother were to be compromised because of your boondoggling?!"

"Don't you mean _bone_ doggling?"

This time, Papyrus did scream in outrage, and Sans laughed softly feeling some of the tension drain from his shoulders as he watched his brother stamp his feet in indignation. "Sans!!! Take what I'm saying seriously for once in your life!!!"

Sans held up his hands and softened his smile, Papyrus' huffing and puffing ceasing when he noticed Sans' shift in body language. "It's okay, Papyrus, I get it. I promise I won't lose my job."

And he hated making promises, especially because he could never keep them when the world kept resetting. Sans would make an exception for Papyrus, though, because Papyrus deserved no less than his absolute best, it's just that his best meant less and less every time the world reset.

He could see the change in his personality every time he read his own notes.

Papyrus smiled as softly as he had ever been able to, and placed his large, gloved hand atop of San's head. "Do not worry, small brother. I, the Great Papyrus, will always be here for you because I am the world's greatest sibling! It doesn't matter to me if you lose your job, I simply think that everyone should be a productive member of society! Your value to me would not change even if you were a smelly skeleton hobo!"

"Thanks, bro," Sans said, letting Papyrus pat his head a few more times before he pulled away. "Hey, want to grab a bite to eat?"

"You **_just ate_**!!!!" Papyrus objected, though he stopped to hand Sans his slippers from where they'd fallen in the snow.

"I think it's time to for a break. Besides, fries are half price at Grillby's today."

"You know I hate Grillby's!!" Papyrus crossed his arms over his chest and huffed, prompting Sans to smile again as he slipped his feet back into the slippers and slid from the counter onto the snow below. "Can't we go home and make spaghetti if you are going to insist upon wasting my valuable time?!"

"I _relish_ your attempts to make me a home cooked meal, but I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to _mustard_ the strength to help you in the kitchen."

Papyrus screamed his name loud enough that Sans couldn't help but forget his woes for just a little while longer.


	2. Worked to the Bone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The alternative title of this story is "Sans is Constantly Sad and the Universe Isn't Fair".

Sans rarely went to this deep into Waterfall, but when he did he always took the chance to explore the junkyard. Many things that came from the world above found their way to the Undground through Waterfall, and Sans was a naturally curious person who enjoyed exploring the unknown, especially when he ought to be doing something else.

When he and Papyrus were much younger monsters they had sometimes come here to play among the garbage, Papyrus taking every opportunity to hoard every interesting odd and end he could find. Back then, they had lived in Hotland, but that was a long time ago, and Sans had been a different person then in pretty much every meaningful way possible.

Still, there were a lot of good memories for him in the junkyard, even one hundred timelines away from the original.

Sans climbed one of the trash piles, rummaging through the rubble, most of it actual trash. Some of it, however, was pretty interesting, and generally an indication of how the humans above lived. There were all kinds of things -- board games, toys, exercise equipment -- but what Sans was most interested in were the few books or DVDs that managed to find their way to the Underground.

He had a small collection of things he'd collected from the Overworld, kept on Papyrus' bookshelf in his room with the solemn promise from his brother that he would never look through them, even though it wasn't a necessary promise. Most of them were terrible science fiction books, but a few of them...

Sans' fingers found the spine of a book, slightly damp, his eyes scanning the words on the binding. It was enough to make his imaginary heart race in excitement as he carefully tried to extricate the book from the trash pile without causing damage to it with his sharp fingers and the surrounding garbage. When he managed to, he let out a laugh, and traced his fingers across the image on the cover -- An artistic rendering of all the planets and a myriad of stars. The words "The Milky Way" were inscribed on the cover in gold font, and though the book was clearly a book for human children, Sans couldn't help but be excited by the aspect of pictures, especially after all he'd read about the Hubble Telescope.

"Oh man..." he breathed, and then carefully tucked the book underneath his arm.

He couldn't let his excitement get the better of him. The book would have to dry out or he'd risk tearing the pages with his fingers. Sans hoped the water damage to the book was minimal so that he could still read it, but even if he couldn't there was still a chance the pictures were intact, which was all Sans really cared about at this point.

Sans slid from the pile, walking over to another one with the mind to find something nice for Papyrus while he was here, too. Maybe a human action figure, which Papyrus could make up his own stories about, or some kind of book about puzzles and the human way of containing them to mental exercises alone, which Papyrus found eccentric to say the least.

Still, his mind wandered to his time in Hotland and the stars he had never seen. He had known a monster, while he still lived there, who was old enough to have remembered what the stars looked like, even though that monster had only been a child when they'd fled to New Home. Sometimes, he would talk to Sans about what those stars looked like, about the shapes that the Monsters back then traced in them with their eyes.

And then... then he would talk about the numbers, and how numbers were the language that the stars spoke. He would talk about how, once they escaped, he would study the stars instead of the flow of time, and learn to speak their language to unlock the secrets they had to share with the world.

That monster was gone now, though, and even if the rest of them made it to the surface, the human had proven that nothing was really permanent.

Sans kicked a crushed can from the top of the pile, listening to the sound echo through the junkyard before he sat down, closing his eyes and pretending that he no longer existed. Even if he understood the math behind the resets, what good did it really do him? There was nothing he could do to stop it, absolutely nothing.

"H-hello?" a voice called from the darkness, a voice that Sans recognized. "I-is an-anybody there?"

He straightened and stood, looking out over the kingdom of trash until his eyes fell upon a familiar hunched figure. In the darkness, her bright yellow scales stuck out like a beacon, making it easy for him to find her, especially since he knew what he was looking for. Sans could remember a time when she hadn't stuttered quite so much, but, well, time had changed them all, hadn't it?

"Hey," he greeted, watching as she spun around and clutched a clawed hand to her chest, her eyes practically bugging out of her head. "What's a girl like you doing in a _dump_ like this?"

She didn't laugh, and he watched her swallow, though her breathing seemed to return to normal. "O-oh... S-sans... I didn't know that you l-liked to come here too..."

"Relax, Doctor," Sans said as he made his way down the pile, book still tucked under arm. "You know I don't have a bad _bone_ in my entire body."

Alphys blinked, and then snickered a bit, some of the tension draining from her. It was possibly because Sans was familiar to her, but he didn't think too much on that particular part of his history any longer. "T-that was terrible, S-sans. U-uh... So why are you here?"

"Oh you know, just getting a _litter_ bit carried away looking through all this garbage." He chuckled at his own joke and came to stand in front of her, jamming his hands back into his pockets. "Long time, no see, Alphys. You look... uh... Very yellow."

"I just sh-shed my scales," Alphys looked away from him, seeming embarrassed. "Y-you... Uh... H-have you gained weight? Wait!!" She practically wailed, holding up her hands. "I-I don't mean like in a b-bad way... Y-you just look.... Uh... I... I mean you're a skeleton. Th-that was probably a stupid thing to say anyway.."

" _Tibia_ honest, I don't mind that much," Sans grinned, but quickly grew more serious. "Seriously though, buddy, don't sweat it. I'm not a very easily offended skeleton."

She looked relieved.

"Anyway, I should probably get going," Sans said with a shrug. "I have more legally required breaks to take and a brother to get back to. It was nice seeing you. It's been real."

"E-er wait! U-uh... A-are you ever coming back to H-hotland? Because...Um... W-we could really use someone like you. Someone a-as smart as you. I can't really remember what you did, but, uh... I-I know you were good at it."

Sans nearly winced, but he just kept smiling at her, his hands shoved into his pockets. What was he supposed to say? She was wringing her hands together and looking like a completely pathetic mess. They had been different departments, they had different focuses, it was...

Sans sighed. "Nah, Alphys, sorry. I can't go back there. I... I _don't have the heart for it_."

It was a joke, but she didn't laugh because they both knew that he meant it. It was exactly the reason he had left in the first place, wasn't it? He was the only one left, so really what was the point? For some reason, he had survived when everyone else had...

He wasn't going to think about that, not today. The true reset was bad enough.

"Anyway, I've gotta go," Sans shuffled, turning around. "Good luck with whatever it is you're doing down here. Cheer up and try not to look so _stern_ um."

He raised a hand to wave goodbye and paused as he saw something red sticking out of the trash pile. Leaning down he dislodged a bright and shiny action figure of a man in a mask and a jumpsuit. Sans smiled as he thought of the brother he still had before jamming the figurine in his pocket and walking further into the junkyard.

* * *

 

Sans had always liked to take things apart and put them back together, which is what he was doing now as he sat in his workshop, tinkering with the machine behind the curtain. Sometimes, he would get an itch to actually try to do something with it other than try to use it to pick up readings from the Anomaly.

It only really happened on his good days, the days when he could forget about all the resetting and timeline hopping long enough to have some small semblance of determination. He wasn't really a determined person, most Monsters weren't, but on his best days he was all the more likely to try just a little bit harder to fix the broken world. Wasn't this the lab's fault, anyway?

His good days were fewer and farther between now, something he could tell because his notes about his progress on the machine started to stop and stutter after a certain point. When they did happen, Sans threw himself into them without abandon, only to realize that his good days were probably ultimately unhealthier for him than his bad days when all his hard work amounted to nothing.

Especially when he came out of his workshop literally hours after going in and saw Papyrus looking at him like he was so fragile he might shatter if someone punched him.

He supposed that wasn't technically incorrect, either.

"Brother!" Papyrus placed a hand on Sans' back and practically steered him away from the workshop and back toward the house. "You've been gone all morning and were not in any of your usual napping places! I was beginning to worry."

"Don't worry. I was just tinkering. You know how I get, bro. I sometimes lose track of time." Sans shrugged it off and smiled, but Papyrus was in a rare serious mood, brought on by what was no doubt genuine worry.

"Be careful not to work yourself... " Papyrus paused, though whether or not it was for dramatic affect Sans couldn't be sure. " _To the bone_."

**_Oh._ **

Papyrus had to be trying to make him feel better.

"Heh. Nice one, bro," Sans said, and walked into the house to drag himself to the couch. "So, you gonna make spaghetti again tonight? That's what I've heard from my _sauces_."

"Sans!!! That was terrible! But if you insist, I, Master Chef Papyrus, will make you the best spaghetti you've ever eaten." Sans watched with a smile as his brother posed in the middle of the living room, right in front of the TV, his hand pressed against his sternum. "You will never go hungry as long as I am here to rescue you from that terrible Grillby's food!"

He laughed, placing his hands in his pockets only to remember the action figure he'd taken from the dump. Sans smiled, tracing the shape of the flexing arms with his bony thumb, turning it over in his pocket as he looked at Papyrus. Sans took it out, and threw it toward his brother, who caught it with a little bit of fumbling.

"I got this from Santa today. He told me to pass it along."

Papyrus' smile was enough to make Sans' trip to the junkyard more than worth it, even with his uncomfortable conformation with Alphys.

"Wow!!! This is amazing, Sans!!! I don't know how Santa knows what I like all the time, and the fact that you are apparently so close with him is a bit suspicious, but this is amazing!!!" Papyrus spun around with the figure for a moment, and then pressed the button on its back that made it flex. "It even has flex action!! I will have to show Undyne this one!"

He turned around to go run up the stairs but then paused, looking at Sans. "Sans! You will tell Santa I said thank you! I will go put this in my room and then come down to make you food, because I am the best brother in the world!"

Sans listened to him stomp up the steps and then grasped the remote to click on the TV, closing his eyes to sink further into the cushions of the sofa. His bad days were filled with working to distract himself from thoughts of all his failures and everything that the resets had cost him, juggling trying to keep Papyrus safe and happy with keeping them afloat in Snowdin. His good days were spent obsessing over his past and dwelling on what he wouldn't allow himself to think about any other time.

But what made them better, what really and truly made his good days better, was the fact that he could actually feel closer to Papyrus on days like this. He could take a step back and really appreciate Papyrus for everything that he did, and not just worry about making sure he lived the months up until the next reset well and without anxiety.

Yeah, his brother was a little goofy, a bit overdramatic, but when it came down to it no one cared more than Papyrus and no one ** _tried_** harder than Papyrus. And when push came to shove, when everyone else was down for the count, Sans knew that he could lean back on Papyrus if he ever truly had a bad day.

And that made Papyrus the coolest, even when he was screaming about a tiny, dirty action figure Sans had found in the junkyard. Maybe even especially then.

Sans let himself sink so far into the couch that his feet dangled off the edge, closing his eyes and picturing Papyrus smiling face. For once, there was nothing else to get in his way, and Sans was happy, if only for a moment.


End file.
